Thursday, February 14, 2008

All my life, I have held an intense fascination with love, with people in love.It could best be described by Charlotte Brontë as a "Theoretical Reverence."I marvel with an objective, even scientific reverence for those in love, in all of it's forms and stages: mother and daughter, brotherly love, the love of friends and acquaintances. And love of a more amative nature, courting couples or man and wife; that is the kind for wich I am possessed of the most piquant veneration. It is almost something I feel too sacred for me to observe, a person in love, seeing the communication of love between two people. I do encroach upon their sacred space to view it. I think the thing that amazes me the most is the reaction of the human in those first tender, fleeting and tenuous moments where a person realizes that another person actually LIKES them, not even love but just LIKE, you know? And that that other person would not be opposed to spending more than 10 minutes in their company. This realization brings with at an accompanying giddiness that is amazing to watch. "This person must not think I suck TOO bad" is the possible thought, and it makes the person happy, truly happy. All of the sudden they laugh with such abandon, and they can smile for a whole hour, and it doesn't even hurt. "I must be okay" they think. At this frist stage of realization, very strange things happen. I have experienced this myself. Last Valentine's Day I was at BYU for the big dance. My father does the music for the Jazz band and he was my date. The dance had a 1940's theme and it was just beautiful to see the girls in the 1940's dresses and hair styles, and the boys in their sailor uniforms, it was quite amazing how authentic it was, the music (a real big band) , the dancing, so authentic that it was almost disconcerting. As I sat on the sidelines eagerly soaking it all in, my Dad by my side, commenting or complaining rather that the band was taking some of the songs WAY too fast, one of the sailor boys came and asked me to dance. I immediately became the biggest fumbling idiot that ever lived, "What ME???" I had not gotten ready at all and it was only by some miracle of coincidence that I was even wearing a skirt. I sprang up out of my chair so quickly that everything that was in my lap fell on the floor...but this patient and charitable sailor waited for me to get a hold of myself and led me to the dance floor to dance...with me. He even let me hold on to his arm. (I would give anything to remember his name!) It was the first time I had been asked to dance in over a decade. And that same Valentine's morning, I had awoken to find my Dad, standing in theside yard, in the cold, hiding a red box of chocolates and pink valentine behind his back...for me. Why do men have to DO things like that??? If they only KNEW the effect that such kindness has on us women! There is no WAY that we women can have the same effect on them! I cannot believe it. I cannot conceive of it's equal in meaning or impact. You men can level us with the smallest act of kindness.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

In some places, flirting is illegal. In Little Rock, AR, an antiquated law is still on the books warning that engaging in playful banter may result in a 30-day jail term. In New York City, another outdated law mandates that men may be fined $25 for gazing lasciviously at a female; a second conviction stipulates the offender wear a pair of blinders whenever he goes out for a walk. - Posted on MSN this morning